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Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Vatican City, 4 February 2014 (VIS) –
“He became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich” is
the title of the Holy Father's Message for Lent 2014. The title is
drawn from the Second Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians in which
the apostle encourages them to show their generosity by helping their
brothers in Jerusalem, who were experiencing difficulties. In the
document, dated 26 December, feast of St. Stephen protomartyr, the
Pope explores the meaning of St. Paul's invitation to evangelical
poverty in our times. The full text of the message is published
below:

“Dear Brothers and Sisters,

As Lent draws near, I would like to
offer some helpful thoughts on our path of conversion as individuals
and as a community. These insights are inspired by the words of Saint
Paul: 'For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty
you might become rich'. The Apostle was writing to the Christians of
Corinth to encourage them to be generous in helping the faithful in
Jerusalem who were in need. What do these words of Saint Paul mean
for us Christians today? What does this invitation to poverty, a life
of evangelical poverty, mean to us today?

Christ’s grace

First of all, it shows us how God
works. He does not reveal himself cloaked in worldly power and wealth
but rather in weakness and poverty: 'though He was rich, yet for your
sake he became poor …'. Christ, the eternal Son of God, one with
the Father in power and glory, chose to be poor; he came amongst us
and drew near to each of us; he set aside his glory and emptied
himself so that he could be like us in all things. God’s becoming
man is a great mystery! But the reason for all this is his love, a
love which is grace, generosity, a desire to draw near, a love which
does not hesitate to offer itself in sacrifice for the beloved.
Charity, love, is sharing with the one we love in all things. Love
makes us similar, it creates equality, it breaks down walls and
eliminates distances. God did this with us. Indeed, Jesus 'worked
with human hands, thought with a human mind, acted by human choice
and loved with a human heart. Born of the Virgin Mary, he truly
became one of us, like us in all things except sin'.

By making himself poor, Jesus did not
seek poverty for its own sake but, as Saint Paul says 'that by his
poverty you might become rich'. This is no mere play on words or a
catch phrase. Rather, it sums up God’s logic, the logic of love,
the logic of the incarnation and the cross. God did not let our
salvation drop down from heaven, like someone who gives alms from
their abundance out of a sense of altruism and piety. Christ’s love
is different! When Jesus stepped into the waters of the Jordan and
was baptised by John the Baptist, he did so not because he was in
need of repentance, or conversion; he did it to be among people who
need forgiveness, among us sinners, and to take upon himself the
burden of our sins. In this way he chose to comfort us, to save us,
to free us from our misery. It is striking that the Apostle states
that we were set free, not by Christ’s riches but by his poverty.
Yet Saint Paul is well aware of the 'the unsearchable riches of
Christ', that he is 'heir of all things'.

So what is this poverty by which Christ
frees us and enriches us? It is his way of loving us, his way of
being our neighbour, just as the Good Samaritan was neighbour to the
man left half dead by the side of the road. What gives us true
freedom, true salvation and true happiness is the compassion,
tenderness and solidarity of his love. Christ’s poverty which
enriches us is his taking flesh and bearing our weaknesses and sins
as an expression of God’s infinite mercy to us. Christ’s poverty
is the greatest treasure of all: Jesus wealth is that of his
boundless confidence in God the Father, his constant trust, his
desire always and only to do the Father’s will and give glory to
him. Jesus is rich in the same way as a child who feels loved and who
loves its parents, without doubting their love and tenderness for an
instant. Jesus’ wealth lies in his being the Son; his unique
relationship with the Father is the sovereign prerogative of this
Messiah who is poor. When Jesus asks us to take up his 'yoke which is
easy', he asks us to be enriched by his 'poverty which is rich' and
his 'richness which is poor', to share his filial and fraternal
Spirit, to become sons and daughters in the Son, brothers and sisters
in the first-born brother.

It has been said that the only real
regret lies in not being a saint (L. Bloy); we could also say that
there is only one real kind of poverty: not living as children of God
and brothers and sisters of Christ.

Our witness

We might think that this 'way' of
poverty was Jesus’ way, whereas we who come after him can save the
world with the right kind of human resources. This is not the case.
In every time and place God continues to save mankind and the world
through the poverty of Christ, who makes himself poor in the
sacraments, in his word and in his Church, which is a people of the
poor. God’s wealth passes not through our wealth, but invariably
and exclusively through our personal and communal poverty, enlivened
by the Spirit of Christ.

In imitation of our Master, we
Christians are called to confront the poverty of our brothers and
sisters, to touch it, to make it our own and to take practical steps
to alleviate it. Destitution is not the same as poverty: destitution
is poverty without faith, without support, without hope. There are
three types of destitution: material, moral and spiritual. Material
destitution is what is normally called poverty, and affects those
living in conditions opposed to human dignity: those who lack basic
rights and needs such as food, water, hygiene, work and the
opportunity to develop and grow culturally. In response to this
destitution, the Church offers her help, her diakonia, in meeting
these needs and binding these wounds which disfigure the face of
humanity. In the poor and outcast we see Christ’s face; by loving
and helping the poor, we love and serve Christ. Our efforts are also
directed to ending violations of human dignity, discrimination and
abuse in the world, for these are so often the cause of destitution.
When power, luxury and money become idols, they take priority over
the need for a fair distribution of wealth. Our consciences thus need
to be converted to justice, equality, simplicity and sharing.

No less a concern is moral destitution,
which consists in slavery to vice and sin. How much pain is caused in
families because one of their members – often a young person - is
in thrall to alcohol, drugs, gambling or pornography! How many people
no longer see meaning in life or prospects for the future, how many
have lost hope! And how many are plunged into this destitution by
unjust social conditions, by unemployment, which takes away their
dignity as breadwinners, and by lack of equal access to education and
health care. In such cases, moral destitution can be considered
impending suicide. This type of destitution, which also causes
financial ruin, is invariably linked to the spiritual destitution
which we experience when we turn away from God and reject his love.
If we think we don’t need God who reaches out to us though Christ,
because we believe we can make do on our own, we are headed for a
fall. God alone can truly save and free us.

The Gospel is the real antidote to
spiritual destitution: wherever we go, we are called as Christians to
proclaim the liberating news that forgiveness for sins committed is
possible, that God is greater than our sinfulness, that he freely
loves us at all times and that we were made for communion and eternal
life. The Lord asks us to be joyous heralds of this message of mercy
and hope! It is thrilling to experience the joy of spreading this
good news, sharing the treasure entrusted to us, consoling broken
hearts and offering hope to our brothers and sisters experiencing
darkness. It means following and imitating Jesus, who sought out the
poor and sinners as a shepherd lovingly seeks his lost sheep. In
union with Jesus, we can courageously open up new paths of
evangelisation and human promotion.

Dear brothers and sisters, may this
Lenten season find the whole Church ready to bear witness to all
those who live in material, moral and spiritual destitution the
Gospel message of the merciful love of God our Father, who is ready
to embrace everyone in Christ. We can so this to the extent that we
imitate Christ who became poor and enriched us by his poverty. Lent
is a fitting time for self-denial; we would do well to ask ourselves
what we can give up in order to help and enrich others by our own
poverty. Let us not forget that real poverty hurts: no self-denial is
real without this dimension of penance. I distrust a charity that
costs nothing and does not hurt.

May the Holy Spirit, through whom we
are 'as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet
possessing everything', sustain us in our resolutions and increase
our concern and responsibility for human destitution, so that we can
become merciful and act with mercy. In expressing this hope, I
likewise pray that each individual member of the faithful and every
Church community will undertake a fruitful Lenten journey. I ask all
of you to pray for me. May the Lord bless you and Our Lady keep you
safe”.

Vatican City, 4 February 2014 (VIS) –
A press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office this morning
to present the Holy Father's Message for Lent 2014. The speakers were
Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the Pontifical Council “Cor
Unum”, Msgr. Giampietro Dal Toso and Msgr. Segundo Tejado Munoz,
respectively secretary and under-secretary of the same dicastery, and
the couple Davide Dotta and Anna Zumbo, missionaries in Haiti.

Before the presentation, the president
of Cor Unum announced that he will visit Haiti again in March, in
order to open a school financed on behalf of the Pope as a sign of
his closeness to the Haitian population, afflicted in 2010 by an
earthquake which claimed more than 220,000 victims and affected a
total of more than 3 million people.

Cardinal Sarah then went on to explain
that the text of this year's Message from the Pope for Lent focuses
on poverty, and Christ's poverty in particular; a concept very dear
to Pope Francis, who since the beginning of his pontificate has
attempted to emphasise this dimension of Christian life. “Certainly,
the Christian vision of poverty is not the same as that which is
commonly held. Too often we consider poverty from a sociological
perspective, and it is understood as a lack of material goods.
Furthermore, the concept of a “poor Church for the poor” is often
evoked as a sort of challenge to the Church, unfortunately also
setting a Church of the poor, a good Church … against a Church of
preaching and truth, a Church dedicated to prayer and to the defence
of doctrine and morals”.

“The first point of reference for a
Christian to understand poverty is indeed Christ, who made himself
poor so that he could enrich us through his poverty. … The choice
of poverty by Christ suggests to us that there exists a positive
dimension of poverty; this resonates throughout the Gospel, which
proclaims that the poor are blessed. It is clear that in this
dimension of poverty there is an aspect of despoliation and
sacrifice. But this is possible because 'Jesus’ wealth lies in his
being the Son'. We cannot set our bourgeois consciences at rest, the
Pope means, by denouncing material lack on the part of others or
denouncing poverty as a system. … The Lenten Message we are
presenting here today makes an important distinction between poverty
and destitution. It is not poverty, which is an evangelical attitude,
but rather destitution that we wish to combat. The Holy Father, in
his Message, lists three forms of destitution: material, moral and
spiritual. The first 'affects those living in conditions opposed to
human dignity'. Faced with this form of destitution, the Church
offers her service, 'her diakonia, in meeting these needs and binding
these wounds which disfigure the face of humanity'. Moral destitution
consists in slavery to vice and sin. This form of destitution is also
the cause of economic ruin, and is always linked to spiritual
destitution, which occurs when we drift away from God and refuse His
love”.

“I believe that this broad view of
poverty, of destitution, and as a consequence the help that the
Church may offer humanity, help us also to arrive at a more complete
vision of man and his needs, without falling in the trap of
anthropological reductionism which claims to resolve all the problems
of the human person simply by resolving the problems of physical and
material well-being”.

The president of Cor Unum recalled that
in the Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, Pope Francis
writes that “Our preferential option for the poor must mainly
translate into a privileged and preferential religious care”. He
affirmed that this concept is fundamental “so as not to transform
the Church into that non-governmental organisation that Pope Francis
spoke about in his first Holy Mass as Pontiff with the Cardinal
Fathers. It would be a great pity if our gaze upon those in need
failed to acknowledge the spiritual poverty that often lurks in the
heart of man and pains him deeply, even though he may be in a
condition of material comfort. … But if we wish to fully grasp Pope
Francis' Message, we must not consider it only in terms of its
anthropological value. Man is by nature the son of God. This is his
wealth! The great flaw of modern culture is that it has imagined
mankind capable of being happy without God, thus denying that which
is most profound in the human person: that is, his existential bond
with the Father Who grants him life. … Thus, it is a crime to
deprive the poor of the presence of God, just as it is a crime to
consider man and allow man to live as if God did not exist, to negate
his being as a creation and therefore his fundamental belonging and
affiliation with God. … Therefore, work in development cannot be
simply that of creating new needs, but rather taking a serious look
at what the person truly is”.